What kind of competition? One with the media (that's records, radio, print, video games, tv, movies, etc) for the attention of our children. And in order to lead them to see that they need a good relationship with Jesus to truly be successful in life, we first have to get their attention!
And that's the first step of trainers of children!
Just think about it...Let's say that one day an investment company decided to build a skyscraper on some land that they own. They hire a contractor, but tell him "We want to save as much money as we can. In fact, the more you save, the more you get paid." "But we have rules that we have to follow in the construction," answers back the contractor. "What about saving money on something unimportant like the foundation," suggests the representative of the investment company. "I guess we could," answers back the contrator, knowing what could happen with a substandard foundation, but keeping his mouth shut anyway. And so, he builds the office building/skyscraper with a weak foundation. When they get finished, they move in, and everything looks just great! Yes, it looks great on the outside, but on the inside, down in the support of the foundation, it has problems! Problems that will show themselves over time."Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it," Proverbs 22:6, WEB
Do you want your children to "not depart from it, or as some translations say, to return to it? Then they HAVE TO have a good foundation in the things of Christ, and that my friend puts you squarely in competition for your child's mind!
Now then, think about New York City...
It's "cocked full" of tall buildings, called skyscrapers. And yet, their track record of havings buldings collapse in a storm is almost perfect! And that's because of a "hard lesson" that they learned about foundations. What they do is to dig down to bedrock in their foundation, so they have a SUPER STRONG foundation for their buildings. And that's because they had the start of some buildings collapse because of the foundation. In fact, one of those buildings was the Empire State Building. But now they make sure that they have good, strong foundations, so their buildings are good and strong.
And, in the same way, we need to make sure that our kids have a good, strong foundation in the things of Christ!
And now to go to the next part of "First things First" articles, just click on the words .
